Shas downplays Likud tensions over Housing Ministry

Attias warns Netanyahu won't be able to form new government if it doesn't give Shas Minister for Housing and Construction.

Ariel Attias and Arye Deri 370.
(photo credit:Oren Nahshon/Flash90)

Although tensions between Shas and the Likud continue to simmer, party officials
sought to downplay the friction on Tuesday.

A report in Ma’ariv claimed
that Construction and Housing Minister Ariel Attias of Shas said in internal
discussions that unless the party retains the Housing portfolio, Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu will not be able to form a government after the upcoming
election.

The report said Attias claimed Shas was heading towards 14 or
15 seats in the next Knesset, and Netanyahu would need them to form a
coalition.

“If Shas isn’t in the coalition then Netanyahu won’t be prime
minister,” Ma’ariv reported the minister as saying.

Last week, Netanyahu
stated that he intended to give the Housing portfolio to Likud- Beytenu,
although he did not rule out bringing Shas into the coalition.

A Shas
source denied the report, however. He said Attias has made “technical” comments
with regard to current polling figures, in that Netanyahu will need Shas in the
next coalition if he wants to form a right-leaning government.

The source
conceded that the Construction and Housing Ministry is important for Shas, but
said the party was not conditioning entry into the coalition upon control of any
specific ministry.

“We want the Ministry of Housing; it’s not a
condition, but it’s a priority,” he said, adding that the more Knesset seats
Shas gets in the elections, the greater leverage the party will have to claim
its desired portfolios.

Low income levels and the desire to live in
haredi enclaves means that affordable housing for the ultra-Orthodox sector is
hard to come by and a critical issue for the community.

The importance of
the issue for Shas was underlined by the movement’s spiritual leader Rabbi
Ovadia Yosef on Saturday night, when he criticized the threats to the party’s
control over the Construction and Housing Ministry.

The party official
also denied claims that Shas had worked only in the interests of the haredi
sector, and pointed to a policy pushed through by Attias to provide first-time
property buyers in the periphery with a NIS 100,000 grant as an example of the
minister’s work for all sectors.

Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennet, who
wants the Construction and Housing Ministry under the control of his party,
accused Shas last week of working only for the haredi community regarding the
issue of housing.

The Shas official also downplayed the reported
political tensions between the Likud and Shas, saying the Likud attacks came
from a desire to distance themselves publicly from the haredi parties, and that
there was every likelihood they would be in the next coalition.